YouSaid · the spoken record

Zichen Wang

lines on the record: 40
first: 2025-06-20
most recent: 2025-06-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Thank you. I'm truly grateful for the opportunity. Thank you to Tracy and John. And I hope maybe not just for me, but for Chinese students, it's obvious, not goodbye.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Officially reported in China legitimizing the non-governmental visits from the US to China. But the other way around, I don't see any news even under Biden administration that the US government openly receives non-governmental visitors, scholars, entrepreneurs, and the Chinese, for example, Xi Jinping, met with dozens of U.S. companies and European company CEOs. So in that vein, the Chinese legitimizing the Western interactions coming into China, but unfortunately I'm not seeing any of that here. Here, what we have is delegitimizing any Chinese government and the non-governmental people coming here. And I think I've heard that the US government is also meeting with non-governmental Chinese actors, scholars, while working in state-run universities and think tanks, but they are not saying anything about that. And that's not something very good.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is because, I mean, as competitive, as hawkish as the US Trump administration hopes to be in China, although I haven't read the latest readout of the phone call, but nobody wants the two countries to go to war. And to just prevent something catastrophic against that, we need people to people dialogues. And the Chinese leaders have been receiving U.S. gas. For example, the vice president of China recent, I think yesterday or today, received the US non-governmental players in China. The Chinese leaders met, for example, Zhang L. Thantan, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. They met Graham Allison, the founding dean of the Harvard Kennedy School. So you have many news in China from Chinese leaders receiving non-governmental guests from the US.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Learning from the rest of the world. But on the phenomenon you just mentioned that there is this some sort of convergence. I do hope they converge on being more open, on being more humane, on being more humanitarian, being more hospitable to people, to persons. And if I may have some sort of last word on this, I'm really saddened and sometimes I'm angry that it's the students, they are at their early 20s or maybe like 19 years ago, they are being made points in this game. Come on, they are innocent. These strategic rivalry, yes, take all your measures against the military industrial complex and even maybe Huawei's, but leave the people alone from this. And let's people-to-people experience and student experiences happen. And this will try to safeguard the long-term stability of the two countries.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think I've heard the term called beating China by becoming China. And I do think that the United States has its legitimate interest in strengthening its supply chain. When it comes to China, what you were mentioning, and I guess maybe Michael Pattis doesn't fully agree that many people believe the process in China of showing up the consumer spending and strengthening the social safety net, that should be accelerated. That should go much faster than it is happening today because the Chinese government, they have officially according to their policy papers, recognizes that In the Chinese minds it's not about basically learning from American way of establishing a social safety net, maybe from the Europeans, I guess. But because it is fundamentally helpful and beneficial for the Chinese society, for the Chinese people to have a relatively robust healthcare coverage insurance so that they could spend money on more iPhones and other consumer electronics, this is fundamentally good, something good. It's not about”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Russia and other states and companies that are deemed hostile to US national interests. And many of the Chinese private companies are, well, silently just abide by all these sanctions because they want to globalize. They want to have markets and partners and supplies across the world. But I guess this is the year 2025. There is no way to turn around this phenomenon, I guess.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another properly private Chinese company is a strategic mistake because these companies were on their way to making China more dynamic, more having more private elements in the Chinese society to have more international exposure, to allow people to have a career path, a meaningful one, a financially rewarding one outside the apparatus. These companies are helping China to become more open, more aligned with international standards. So these are positive forces from a market perspective that would help align China with the globalization process, with the so-called rule-based international order. And this is also the reasons, for example, the US has imposed many export controls and has, for example, sanctioned”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and we had to go to the European markets to increase its customers' numbers and revenue. And after a few years, and especially when the industry became more strategic, and then the Chinese government would take a look at the potential players and believe, oh, this is perhaps an industry that's going to be of strategic value in the future and would provide some sort of assistance to them. But I wouldn't think that there is a CCP committee overseeing Huawei on a daily basis, telling them, you know, this is something you should do in Southeast Asia, and this is something you should work on in Africa. And if that were the case, Huawei wouldn't be where it is today, which is also why I sincerely believe that the US persecution of Huawei”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think on macro level, I do not see a drastic difference between for example a US president wants to have Nvidia or Apple to become the dominant forces in the world. From the Chapes Act, from the inflation reduction act to offering generous subsidies to American companies. In China, there is this support for Chinese companies. But in many cases, not from the very start. It's like, you know, while we started very little and it was competing with European telecom vendors at the very beginning. And for many years, you know, China mobile, China Unicom, all the telecommunication firms, they just wanted the equipment from the European suppliers. It's incredible.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is this term which says keep your friends close and keep your enemy closer. I'm not sure exactly if China and US are enemies at the moment, but just from that inside, I think it would be very beneficial for the US, especially policy schools, but also other social sciences and universities to try to have Chinese contributions to have Chinese students presence here so that, you know, when push comes to shove, they have someone to call, they know what the Chinese are really thinking about. And that is, I think one of the tragedies from the crackdown on, for example, Harvard and Harvard Kennedy School.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I click on a link and I scroll to the controversy. The joke I typically make in this sort of conversations is that, well, I came from the stateground news agency. I was a proper Chinese government personnel. And now people would characterize me as some sort of the term United Front. That's like semi-government. You are downgrading me. Like I was proper Chinese government for 11 years and I left in October 2022. And if we have time, I'd be happy to dive into the details of the difference between a government wrong think tank and a non-governmental think tank in China. But to your larger point is that”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Facebook, now known as Meta, and all those booms they contribute to consumer internet. That was the thing in China as well, like Alibaba and Tencent. What they do is they popularize some technologies which makes lives much easier for everyday consumers and also businesses. But in a sense, I think now more value is put into the sort of technologies that would really boost the productivity in industrial process. For example, even doctors and hospitals can identify certain diseases. It's not just, you know, I can go out and get a delivery much easier from a restaurant. The term technology I think has taken on a new meaning. And if I can make a recommendation, there is a stem wang who I think is in.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You are very sharp-height. I think if it was in the 1990s, people wanted to go to, I don't want to name names, like certain finance schools in China. And after graduation, they would want to work in Goldman Sachs. And Morgan Stanley, that's like the top jobs. Maybe when I graduated from college in 2011, that's still the case. What the people wanted to do because it makes huge money. It makes very big money. But especially in the past decade, I think I'm sure you have reported this, there is large cuts to the income, to the wages of Chinese financial engineering. And even when it comes to the internet sector,”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brain telling everyone to do everything else. And yes, the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China enjoys enormous power in shaping the Chinese society compared with Western powers. But do not discount. And actually, I think much more emphasis should be put on the non-state part of the Chinese society.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The states around companies are falling behind, at least in the autumn bill sector. And that shows that I think people tend to see China as a country with the Communist Party of China sitting atop the state tells everyone what to do and marshalling all the resources. But it is also at the same time just spectacularly competitive and innovative place where private ingenuity and hard work really plays a very big role. There is the saying in China, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine basically says over half of the GDP of the taxation of the new employment are all created by private companies. And so that's something when Americans perceive China, they think of just one very coherent, I don't know, back month where, you know, there is this larger central”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was trying to say is there is this discrepancy with all the power of us, industrial strategies, but at the same time it's a private ingenuity of the innovation, of the hard work of the private Chinese companies, which have somehow come out atop.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, that could be some sort of a good policy advice for the Trump administration, I guess, and also maybe European governments. And secondly, I'm...”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All these Chinese stay around automobile giants are actually falling behind now. What you are seeing in the EV boom in China, the names coming to mind are all very new private automobile makers. They didn't exist. They didn't benefit from the sort of state monopoly or preferential loans and maybe land and all these in-kind subsidies for those. They basically partnered with BMW, with all these American and European car makers. But look, they are falling behind now.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For example, let's talk about ease, right? You know, the electric vehicles. So every right now knows that China is leading on EVs and people talk about BYD, about Xiaomi, the former smartphone maker, turned automobile maker. So, many people attribute to some sort of Chinese subsidies and industrial strategy. But bear also in mind that before this EV boom, there were like a dozen Chinese automobile makers, almost all of them were state-run automobile companies, because China implemented this when foreign carmakers come to China, you have to form joint ventures with Chinese partners. And in many cases, the Chinese partners have to be in control of 51% of the joint venture.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Coming to mind, but sometimes they are also very short sighted. The Chinese have good accomplishments, they also make stupid mistakes. That's just human nature.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You mentioned the subsequent idea technology and all those, for example, I also had the privilege of being invited to some of the major think tanks here to share my views with fellow think tank analysts and former government officials. I think if I really want to summarize what I've been doing is to normalize China because China has a vastly different political system from the United States, from all the major Western industrial economies, I think people fundamentally see China as a different beast. But China also has politics. The Chinese government has many government departments, ministries. They compete with one another. There is politics between different departments, politics between different people inside one government department. The Chinese make five-year plans and they seem to be implementing that quite well. For example, made in China 2020.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From private donations, I'm truly grateful for that. And I don't think like any other country on earth simply has the financial capacity to do something like that. So this is something really should be cherished here. I will certainly carry all these lessons and appreciations back to China.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's number two? Well, number two is I think I benefit a lot from all the critical discussions on colleges. It's not just pro-Trump or against Trump. We have very different views on all sorts of subjects. Some professors are rightfully worried about, for example, rule of law here, but we have also some classmates who have faculties who are very sympathetic to what the broader Republican agenda is doing here in the United States. So I think this clash of different ideas, the market of free ideas is something really stimulating for me personally. And the other reasons is that, for example, I'm fully funded by Princeton Spear here. And so I benefit truly from the hospitality and the generosity of the American people here. Princeton is the private universities. The money coming.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the first thing I would tell them is I had the enormous privilege of coming to Outlaws on Princeton, on Bloomberg, I'm sorry. And that's really...”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of American hospitality, and they would serve as one of the defense lines in terms of China-U.S. relations as decreasing mutual strategic misunderstanding and miscalculations. So this is truly something very important in my mind. And I'm really saddened to see the crackdown on Chinese students to come to the United States.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Leave and brought the knowledge back with them. That's not the case. Yes, they benefit enormously from the education system here, which is just spectacular, but they make meaningful contributions in conducting research and collaborating with American peers and professors. They stay in labs for days and months, which would result in papers in top American journals. They actually contribute to the creation of knowledge and the sharing of knowledge here. They contribute in the process. It's a symbiotic process, not an extractive process. So by having them here and some of them would remain here legally, I should say, to work in the US, become entrepreneurs and researchers and American taxpayers to pursue their American dreams and some of them would leave the US and go back to China, India, and everywhere on Earth. And they would become informal ambassadors of American openness, of American inclusiveness.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enormous training capacity of the Chinese education system, which also makes many people wonder here, AI is going to shape everything in the future and the two countries seem to be locked in a competition that the US really want to shut out such a large talent pool in AI. And these students, Chinese students, you know, after completing their undergrad degrees, they come to the United States, they contribute to meaningfully to groundbreaking research. And I think this is one thing that many people have maybe an inaccurate understanding of how graduate level education, especially in STEM fields, work. This is not an extractive process. It's not that Chinese Indian students from Global South come to the US universities. They learned, they sat in classrooms, they learned from their American professors and peers.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, say news agency. And my mother used to tell me, why don't you learn something real, like finance and journalism? They are not like real professionals. Well, I guess I didn't test very well in Chinese college entrance examination. For many years, there was this quote in China, and I think it still rings true. And it may be it rings even truer today. Well, in Chinese, it's called if you learn mathematics and physics and chemistry, you can go everywhere and do well. And that is still on many Chinese minds. And so, for example, in AI, I think Jansen Huang of Nvidia, he said like a few weeks ago, I think he was citing Marco Polo, a think tank here, formerly affiliated with the Paul Institute, is that 50% of the global AI talent is Chinese, or maybe having some sort of Chinese heritage. So that does speak to the...”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, that's correct. And almost all universities in China are state wrong. All the Ivy Leagues are privately run universities here in the US. Maybe because I think China is still to some extent a transition economy. So China initiated its reform and opening up in 1978. But before that, it was a totally planned economy where the government basically tells everyone what to do in their schools and in their professional journeys. And based on those paradigms, a lot of Chinese universities are set up to train people in a specific field. For example, there is this Beijing aeronautics university, which basically trains people in space-related technology and maybe rocket science. And then there is also comprehensive universities. But for many years, there was this”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is something I think that has been observed, and it talked about in the past few years when people compare Chinese and American universities, but also between Chinese and I guess Indian universities, because based on what I read, which may not be very accurate, it's like India also trains a lot of lawyers and, you know, social sciences majors. But the general perception is that the Chinese colleges and universities are training many more STEM grads. And in semiconductor related mechanical engineering.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And PKU University, and also here in the US, I think the policy schools benefit greatly from, first of all, former policymakers like retired former Assistant Secretary of State. And so here we have many very good practitioners who are becoming teachers. We have, for example, at Princeton Speer, some former Biden administration officials who just exited the administration. Well, I think in Chinese universities, to be fair, I haven't gone to those policy schools, but that would be rare. And secondly, this place benefits from a much broader, well, I guess this is a toxic word now, diversity here now. For example, my class is highly international, like over half of the classmates are international students, and also the faculty members. Some of them even come from foreign governments. I really benefited from the global perspectives I get from Princeton here.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well that's a very good question. I think there is this key difference, for example, policy schools are mostly for early career and mid-career professionals in public service sector. And here, I think, for example, at Haver Kennedy School, at the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale at Princeton's Beer, they are offered full-time. And that's because not just the US, but also many governments across the world, they have the flexibility to allow their people to basically take a year or two years off their professional career and come here. But back in China, I think many of those programs are taught as a part-time process, although they are labeled a full-time process because I think sometimes the rigidity of personnel management system means that it's very difficult for people to basically leave work for a year or two and get a full-time education at maybe change.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was a time when China was much less open and dynamic than it is today. So what is happening is really unfortunate. I think because of this long history, many Chinese took for granted the opportunities to come here and study in America if they are good enough to be offered admission letters. But the larger background is, of course, I guess globalization, because for many, many years, people just believe, you know, everyone is going to be more connected and we will benefit from more people-to-people exchanges, from commerce, from research collaborations. But unfortunately, that era seems to be ending right now. Well, it may have begun to be ending quite a few years ago.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, before Jules of Knight created the concept of soft power and the U.S. has been practicing that. So they ceded the top university in Beijing and sponsored 1,300 Chinese students to come to the United States. And after the bilateral ties were established, since the two countries normalized their diplomatic relations, Republican and Democratic presidents both welcomed Chinese students. There was this very famous episode where Chinese top leader Deng Xiaoping at the time asked, you know, if he could send something like 5,000 Chinese students to the US and President Carter, according to his own recollections, he responded that, well, tell him, tell Deng Xiaoping to send 100,000 students to America. I also read President Ronald Reagan actually received the Chinese students and made remarks in some sort of reception welcoming them.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Since bilateral relations worsen, the United States has a proud history of welcoming Chinese students who come to the United States. In the beginning of the 20th century, when China was still governed by the Qing Dynasty, there was this boxer indemnities, basically the compensations paid by then Qing dynasty to various Western powers. And at that time, the US was kind enough and smart enough to turn those compensations into a scholarship program.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it definitely has already had a chile impact. And I mean, for me personally, I feel very welcomed. And I feel all the hospitality and warmth from my American professors, you know, school administrators and the princin community of neighbors and my local friends. But for most of the Chinese students who are currently in this situation, are perhaps too scared to speak up. And especially after the news last week, I think they are under a bit of stress because the announcement out of the State Department is very broad. It doesn't use very exact language to ascertain who will exactly be in trouble.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In light of what happened at Harvard, let me think of a way of not putting Princeton in jeopardy again. I did get, I think not just me, but everyone else did get some emails from sort of guidance from the university, which says it took notice of recent news and it is offering resources, basically, I guess, you know, counseling as well as potential legal resources for people to not to be against the administration, but to comply with all the laws and regulations in this country.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was like 80 or 19% of my plan, mainly for personal reasons. But also I think the political atom sphere is a bit overwhelming. I did have some kind of offers from potential employers here, but I decided against them. The State Department announced actually they are going to aggressively revoke Chinese students' visas as well as impose further scrutiny on future Chinese students' visa applications. Let's say I stay for one more year I would be on OPT or CPT, which is a post-training upon graduation from a US college, but that status would be linked to your student visa, your F1 visa. So the potential consequences for Chinese students is not just currently enrolled students, but also other people who are on OPTCPT status here.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, exactly. In this case, and also living stipend, and so I turned down some other offers from the UK, from Singapore, and came here. And also, as you correctly mentioned at the very beginning, China-US relations is perhaps the most consequential bilateral relations for someone whose past career was in journalism and non-governmental think tank. I couldn't think of a better place to be here in the US. But, you know, here we are, and I feel like being overwhelmed by all these news.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before coming to the mid career master in public policy program at Princeton School of Public International Affairs, formerly known as the World Wilson School, I'd already been working for 13 years, so I was like at the middle of my professional trajectory and I was thinking about getting another advanced education. And of course the United States is the top destination when other thing is that to the credit of Princeton, the policy school offers fully funded education. So that means they exam all the tuition and the healthcare coverage.”
2025-06-20 · Odd Lots · Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source